For not paying nearly £20 for a second hand coat?

[Sbrown32]

So, today I went charity shopping for the first time in a while as I needed a winter coat for the last few months of my pregnancy. I found a really lovely one that I wanted, it was a nice colour and the quality wasn't to bad, a few imperfections but overall I was happy, until I went to go look at the price 🙃 £18.50!! I don't know if I am just being cheap but that seemed expensive for anything second hand!

Most of my clothes are second hand and I rarely buy brand new, I am used to paying a few £ for any item of clothing and have gotten many coats in the past for £5 - £10 depending on type of coat. I just can't get over it and may have embarrassed the OH with my rant inside the store 🤣

🙄 would you not pay £20 for a 2nd hand coat if it was a decent brand which would have cost £100 new?

You spent £25 on a takeaway which is just a waste of money imo.

Guessing it was a brand if going for that kind of cash. Without knowing it’s not easy to say if unreasonable. For all we know it was an Aquascutum wool coat, at which point I’d definitely have bit their arm off.

Charity shops are not, and never have been "for people who could not afford much at all".
I understand that people have budgets but that's not why charity shops are there.
Yes, they get a lot of stock for free - all of it, in fact. But a lot of it is utter crap. People donating jumpers with holes in, used underwear (which clearly show signs of use), items the shops say they cannot take (e.g. electrical goods, furniture), single shoes, opened cosmetics, torn and stained clothes.
It all has to be sorted and dealt with.
Sometimes people turn up having done a house clearance and dump their stuff on them. That means there's no room for quality donations.

All that said, some volunteers have no idea about pricing. That's an issue for management. Many charity shops now have fixed price points, set by their head offices, and they have sales targets too.
But seeing £1 primark tops priced at £2 is wrong, I'll concede. That's something that people need to raise with the staff. It's easy to check the 'going rate' for items.

I still disagree that £20 for a decent winter coat is expensive.

Depends on the quality, as others have said. I picked up a vintage wool Aquascutum coat about 10 years ago in a local charity shop for £25, and I still can’t believe my luck! But I would pay it for a normal high street coat made out of cheaper materials.

I paid £6 for a very warm second hand designer jacket, then £12 to have it dry cleaned - so £18 in total. It has been worth every penny. (The money went to the Yorkshire air ambulance BTW).

I got a very new- looking Barbour quilted jacket for £20 recently. I was very pleased with it and the new version was nearly £200.

i think you have to accept that the function of charity shops is to maximise income for their charity.

You can always sell it on vinted when you’re done.

It depends on the brand and the shop. A lot of Cancer Research shops are closing down and I assume they are struggling because they price things like brand new goods. Meanwhile there's a Mind shop near me and I picked up a brand new with tags North Face coat for £10.

Does the amount of time you are going to wear something, affect how much it costs to make? Or the quality of it?

It's for both. That said, anyone who expects prices in a charity shop to remain the exact same price for 20+ years are being ridiculous. These shops have overheads too. The people working there have to be paid, and they do need to raise money for charity.

These replies are ridiculous (well it is MN so what do I expect?).

Of course you don't want to pay that much...you go into a charity shop to get a bargain that you don't have to think about too much. Charity shops have so much stuff donated that I often feel cheeky for donating and they'd make more money if they charged less and had a faster turnover. The charity should extend to the customers.

The last coat I got was a vintage John Lewis wool coat in excellent condition. It was £3.99. In my town, most of the charity shops still have reasonable prices.

You certainly shouldn't have ranted in the store, that's dreadful. I hope you bought it in the end.

If it was a good coat I'd have thought £18.50 was quite reasonable. what did you expect? Charity shops sell good quality stuff these days.

I paid £60 for a charity shop jacket - but it would have been £400 new. I was in a perfect condition, I think it was a bargain!

Loads of charity shops are closing because they can't afford the rents. Our local hospice used to have several shops, but now they just have a hub, which is basically a warehouse with a shop on a trading estate (for which they have won an award), but you can only get there if you drive.

What. The. FUCK?!!

She's PREGNANT, FFS!

Why not buy a second hand bump-covering coat rather than being wasteful?

REALLY bitchy and unnecessary comment.

Will they, though? I only have one charity shop close by and it's ran by 3 sullen women who have priced stuff higher than it sells in the shops. A h&m tee which i have sells for £4 when its £3.99 new; kids books are often priced at £3-4 no matter how fog-eared they are. I dropped off stuff recently and heard them lamenting how sales were down. I'm not surprised. they've even refused stuff cause the turnaround is so slow. Surely its better to price books etc at £1 and just keep accepting donations?

I paid £30.00 for a BNWT Hobbs coat from a charity shop. It was £275.00 new. Bargain.

You do not go into a charity shop for a 'bargain' charity shops are to raise money for good causes. So if something is worth £80 new, why on earth would they price it at £3 if it's in great condition???

St Michael's Hereford ?

About five years ago I found a MaxMara coat for £20 in a local charity shop, beautiful classic style cashmere and wool blend. Sadly we've had a moth infestation and it got munched 😔

Yes, I'm sure that's true, but we wander around the local shops most days and regularly buy things. We go in Cancer Research almost every week because my daughter loves the manager there, and I actively look for things to buy because I feel bad that she gets showered with attention and we walk out without anything, but everything is so expensive. I picked up a second hand Squishmallow today, only a small one. It was £7, the same price as it would be new, so I put it back. Most of the shop is now taken up with purpose made shop items now anyway. They are nice, quality goods but I go to charity shops for sustainable and low cost shopping, not expensive new goods.

This.

If you're buying second hand, and taking the time to trawl through rails and shelves in charity shops when you could type in what you want on Amazon and have it in the post by tea time, then you absolutely can expect a bargain and that's why charity shops are so popular. I don't go into a charity shop because I want to raise money for a good cause- I have donations set up by direct debit for that.

Charity shops have big overheads the same as any other business. They can't charge silly money across the board anymore.

You can obviously buy, or not buy what you like. But I don't think £20 is unreasonable depending on quality. As long as there's a good range of lower budget coats too.

What really bugs me is when the prices don't reflect the brand or quality - like £8 for a used next t-shirt. Who is buying that?